1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a facsimile apparatus in which entry information of an optical character recognition (OCR) sheet is recognized in a terminal place and recognized results are transmitted to an order-receiving center, and more particularly to a facsimile apparatus in which entry information of a plurality of OCR sheets are recognized or the recognized results are displayed or printed. Also, the present invention relates generally to a communication system in which entry information of an OCR sheet is recognized in a terminal place, recognized results are transmitted to an order-receiving center, and an order process is performed. In particular, the present invention relates to a communication system in which the OCR sheet is printed out.
2. Description of the Prior Art
2.1. Previously Proposed Art
Contents of an order is given to an order-receiving center by phone, or a handwritten document is transmitted from an order terminal side to the order-receiving center according to a facsimile communication after the contents are handwritten. In the center, the contents of the order are manually input to a host computer through a keyboard by an operator. However, the input processing is troublesome, and an input error often occurs. Therefore, in an advanced prior art, piece of image data transmitted by facsimile are automatically converted into pieces of code data according to a character recognition processing, and the code data are input to the host computer without using the keyboard.
In detail, names of one or more ordered articles or one or more codes corresponding to the ordered articles are written in an OCR sheet, and the number of ordered articles is also written in the OCR sheet in numeral for each type of article. Thereafter, pieces of order data written in the OCR sheet is transmitted to the order-receiving center according to the facsimile communication. In the center, the order data of the OCR sheet are received as pieces of image data, and the image data are recognized with a character recognition apparatus to convert the image data into pieces of code data, and the code data are input to the host computer.
In a current art, the image data are not recognized with the character recognition apparatus with an accuracy of 100%. In other words, there is a possibility that the image data are erroneously recognized, so that the code data in which one or more data erroneously recognized are included at some possibility are input to the host computer. In the host computer, the code data including the erroneous data at some possibility are converted into pieces of reproduced image data indicating pieces of reproduced order data, and the reproduced image data are transmitted to the order terminal side according to the facsimile communication. Thereafter, the reproduced image data are checked at the order terminal side. In case where one or more pieces of erroneous data are found in the reproduced image data, the order terminal side requests the order-receiving center to correct the erroneous data. Thereafter, at the order-receiving center, pieces of corrected code data are manually input to the host computer through the keyboard or are manually written in a correcting input sheet to input the corrected code data in the host computer.
2.2. Problems to be Solved by the Invention
However, there is a drawback that the work for checking the reproduced image data at the order terminal side and manually inputting or writing the corrected code data at the order-receiving center is troublesome.
To solve the drawback, one or more order items are written in an OCR document sheet at the order terminal side, a character recognition of the order items are performed with a character recognition apparatus at the order terminal side to convert the order items into pieces of image data, an operator corrects one or more errors in cases where he finds out the errors from the image data, and the image data corrected are transmitted to the order-receiving center.
In this case, it is necessary that the operator checks whether or not one or more errors exist in the image data to prevent the image data including the errors from being transmitted to the order-receiving center. In a conventional checking device, the image data of the order items written in an OCR document sheet are limitedly displayed. Therefore, there is another drawback that it is difficult for the operator to realize what the image data displayed by the conventional checking device indicate.
Also, a format of the OCR document sheet is often modified according to the variation of the orders for the purpose of being easily used or because of the modification of intended purposes. In this case, various types of OCR document sheets are actually utilized to process many types of orders. Therefore, it is required for each of the order terminal sides to provide with the basic processing program used for performing the character recognition for the types of OCR document sheets and pieces of OCR sheet format information used for respectively detecting one or more character regions of one type of OCR document sheet in which the order items are handwritten.
Also, in this case, it is required to store not only a plurality of basic processing program but also pieces of OCR sheet format information in a memory of each order terminal side, there is another drawback that it is required to provide a memory having a large capacity for each of the order terminal sides. Also, it is required that the OCR sheet format information are modified for each of the order terminal sides. Therefore, it is impossible to modify the OCR sheet format information required in the order terminal sides without any error.